Viewpoint: The silver lining of getting fired from your internship

“Thanks for all the hard work today! It’s really appreciated, oh, and by the way, you’re fired.”

Nothing is worse than the dreaded ‘F’ word. It’s enough to make you pull your hair out and wonder what went so wrong. It was even worse hearing it on the bus ride home via e-mail.

As a fashion major, one of my requirements to graduate is one internship for credit. I’ve had six so far and I still think about having more, but this particular experience was part of my second internship with a very large pearl wholesale company.

I was ecstatic and excited to begin my journey as their PR and marketing intern. Sure, I didn’t have the experience they may have wanted but I had the drive and capability to learn. I give my work 200% as I am extremely serious about my career; so when I read those words, I was both in shock and awe.

I was there from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. that day. I said goodbye to my supervisor and told her I would see her tomorrow. She could have sat me down then and told me why she was letting me go. I would have much rather had her say it to my face and not an e-mail.

In her note, she also detailed that a “jack of all trades is a master of nothing.” I have many interests so while I understood her advice, I would rather not live by it. In life, you need to experience anything.

Can you really be a master of anything? You can be really good at your job, average or really bad. Everyone is different. The e-mail was a slap to the face for me as she knew I had quit my job to be there full time. I had been fired less than a month in. I was internshipless and jobless.

At first, I was upset and then very angry. I was angry with her and with myself. Never was I given an explanation to why they had let me go, but when they had hired one of the workers’ children and she had slowly begun to take my tasks, I knew I was being pushed aside.

Sometimes, things do not go the ways they were initially planned. You will feel down in the dumps, but you will always stand back up and get back out there. After I was fired, I let myself have a little bit of downtime to enjoy my summer. When fall came around, I applied to hundreds of internships. I let them know about my time there and the positives of it all.

I look back and I still have a bad taste in my mouth, but I feel grateful all the same, because experience is experience. You will get fired at least once in your lifetime and it’s best to take it with a grain of salt and keep your head held high. One bump in the road won’t keep you tripped up for too long. Here I am six internships later and I still feel like I have so much more to experience and learn!

My tips for getting fired are: Ask them why you are getting fired and what are some advice they can offer. My supervisor was kind enough to give me a letter of recommendation, thus I felt like it wasn’t completely my fault. Additionally, give yourself a few days to clear your mind; getting fired from anything can leave you down in the dumps. Go out on a road trip before starting your search again!